


Waves

by caseyblevins



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Hockey Bros Being Bros Don't Ever Confront Their FEELINGS, Jack wants to focus on the ice and start over, Kent Parson doesn't want to let go of what he has, M/M, Overdosing, Substance Abuse, sometimes you have to let go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6591793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caseyblevins/pseuds/caseyblevins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kenny and Zimms owe each other a lot of apologies. </p><p>~ ~ ~</p><p>"Happy memories come in echoes on empty walls of your heart you shattered at the start of recovery. They hide in the corners of alleyways and broken windows, hoping not to be discovered until better days. They whisper in terms of flashbacks:"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waves

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are nice!!!! If anything is taken weirdly to you feel free to assume this as an AU

Everything comes in waves. That's what Jack learned in rehabilitation. His sadness, his anxiety, his happiness. It all overtook him so suddenly. He became enamored and compulsive, until the wire in his head short circuited and he drove to another ocean.  
  
What he had then, was drowning. There were constants, two things: his determination and Kent Parson. Both parties enveloped Jack's heart. He shook at the hand of his papa’s gaze, the big Bad Bob, full of love for his son he never saw. Full of pride he never saw shine.  
  
Kent Parson, Kenny, Parse, on the other hand, was there after. When his hands shook against the orange translucent bottles, when he sat against the door with static thoughts, when his throat filled with words unspoken. Parse held his wrists and brought him to his home, brought him to himself. Parse sat with him in all he worried. In hockey, in home, in life.

 

~ ~ ~

It started like this:

 

Jack Zimmermann, son of Bad Bob, the legend, the champion. Ride off in his armor, bruised battered, but unwavering. Meet your partner in crime, your lullaby-- Kent Parson. The boy’s blonde and sings of tainted gold.

 

The two meet quietly. Jack just wants to focus on the ice. He wants to get through this and live up to the hype, the murmurs behind the screen. Kent wants a friend, he’s outgoing and they mesh well. On the ice, and off.

 

“Hey, do you want to come over later?”

 

And it starts simply, but their fire never mixed well, not when they rely on the ice.

  
~ ~ ~  
  
Happy memories come in echoes on empty walls of your heart you shattered at the start of recovery. They hide in the corners of alleyways and broken windows, hoping not to be discovered until better days. They whisper in terms of flashbacks:  
  
Jack and Parse, the best pair the hockey world had seen.  
  
Jack and Parse, filled to the brim with cheap beer and cheap thrills, holding each other at 4 am, hoping. Parse's hands in Jack's hair. Jack's hand against his heart. They don't speak. They don't say a thing.  
  
Jack and Parse, falling apart at the seams. Never explaining weeks before. Hiding behind nervous hearts and pretty girls.  
  
Jack and Parse, being quiet and loud. Together and apart. Big and small. They take each other apart.

 

See here, before it all. They were simple then, only full of warning signs no one saw. Overlooked, not given a second thought.

 

“Zimmssss,” he slurs his words, giggling and happy. They’d just won the Memorial Cup and are buzzing with both liquor and happiness. Jack holds his half drunk cup carefully, taking sips every once in awhile, just to fit in.

 

“Kenny?” Jack whispers it quietly, draping Kent’s arm over his neck, hoisting him up to his room. “I think it’s time we lie down, everyone's started to go home now.”

 

“Mmm okay.” The blonde boy smiles against his chest, full of promise and love, full of calm trust.

 

Eventually Jack gets him to sit in his bed-- after what seemed like an endless round of “Kenny cmon” and Parse’s whines. Jack came to the conclusion only he’d get in if he sat with him. It made Parse feel safe, feel secure.

 

“I’m coooold.” He hissed, Jack chuckled and brought a blanket over him.

 

“It may be the beer you spilled on you, eh?”

 

With that Kent expelled a “Hmph” and tore off the shirt and his shorts, smiling triumphantly at Jack as if he beat him at his own game.

 

Jack rolled his eyes but he lingered on Kent’s chest. Pale and flushed by the alcohol-- he looked beautiful. He didn’t know if it was the beer or the hype from the win, but he couldn’t tear himself away from his best friend.

 

And once he did, Parse noticed.

 

And that’s when his lips connected against Jack's. Sloppily, but determined, he kissed him slowly-- whispering all the promises he knew were inside him. He slowly found himself straddling Jack, holding his cheeks, and then his waist, nearing the bottom of his shirt before Jack realized what was happening and pulled away.

 

“Kenny you’re drunk-- this, no-- it’s not the time.” He breathed out, recollecting himself. Cheeks hinting pink.

 

“I know what I’m doing Zimms” He whimpered. Pouting and going to lean in again before Jack stopped him.

 

“Then you’ll know what you’re doing another time.” Jack stared, determined. He sighed and then gently pushed Kent next to him, smoothing his own shirt. “C’mon, it’s late. You should get to bed.” He sat up and stood near the door before Parse spoke up.

 

“Are you going now?”

 

Jack paused, “Do you want me to?”

 

Kent laughed, a bubbly drunk laugh, but he spoke with sober thoughts. “No.” He rubbed the back of his neck and then exhaled, “I need someone to help me clean up in the morning.”

 

Jack laughed. “Then I’ll get some blankets for the floor eh?”

 

“You can.. You can sleep with me. I mean. It wouldn’t be the first time. Unless you um-- Unless it’s weird?”

 

Jack shook his head and climbed into bed with the boy.

 

In the morning he woke to Kent’s arms draped around his waist, and the sun in their eyes.  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
Bitter memories don't taste like chocolate in your throat. Nor are they coffee or almonds. They're inedible. Leaving the tinge of ache in their wake-- they never let you rest, they never rely on fate.  
  
They overthrow like this:  
  
Miscommunication and hidden glances, overlooked, forgotten.  
  
Accepted challenges thrown to the wind-- don't tell him, don't tell him.  
  
Bubbling boiling up inside you, bursting between you and them. You and that. You and the bottle in your grasp.  
  
_Just a bit more. Calm the nerves. Calm the nerves._

See here, in the middle of it all. They were complex then, full of warning signs. Too scared to confront. Too scared to hear the truth.

 

Pushed up against the wall is Jack Zimmermann, son of a legend, ready to be his own someday. It’s nearing the time when Jack’s parents are home, but Kent doesn’t care right now, not with Jack against his lips. Neither pay attention to the time. Jack whispers that they should stop. Kent murmurs a yes, but they don’t. Not until Alicia Zimmermann is knocking at the door, asking if they can come down for some lunch.

 

Later, Alicia offers for Kent to stay over since they have an early practice. Jack shrugs it to Kent, who nods. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done this.

 

It’s late at night and there’s whispers in the walls. They kiss but they never tell. It’s unspoken. They don’t know what they are.

 

It goes like this:

 

“Kenny I--”

 

“Shh, I’m sleepy Zimms.”

 

“Parse”

 

“...” Followed by faint snores.

 

Jack never makes an effort beyond that.

 

They’re both at fault. Kent doesn’t know. And Jack doesn’t want to know. They meet on the ice and off the ice, but only one place has the communication they need.

 

From now on Jack tries to focus on the ice. His coach says that he’s seemed distracted. So he avoids Kent in any place that isn’t hockey, as much as he can. Kent is persistent, but their exchanges usually end in heat and then a slammed door. Until Kent stops trying. And Jack stops caring.

 

Or he says.

  
~ ~ ~  
  
In the compass of life Jack knows only one thing. Go forward. Push through. Run at it with your all and check it away. Its as practiced, its routine. And Jack enjoys his routines. They're set to get to his goal. And he cannot afford this penalty. The hit is too critical and the injuries are bleeding through and through hitting every part of him, out of the blue.  
  
But he pushes forward.  
  
Be Better  
  
So he skates faster. Until he falls.  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
He notices out of absence. The two haven't spoken like they had in previous times in months. It feels forgotten. The closeness now fills with the mist of pain and tension and heated exchanges that never end in conversation. They can't admit. They can't say. Words with too much weight to hit their ears.  
  
When he gets a call from his parents he rushes out of the rink to see him. There's no thought. There's no process. Just fleeing.  
  
When his parents leave he holds him like he had before. Or Jack holds him. Neither know at this point. Parse whispers he's sorry. He says he loves him. Jack says nothing.  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
He leaves for rehab suddenly. Holding the truth that Kent has decided to go. Holding the weight of not seeing him everyday.  
  
He's angry, almost. It’s something he can’t explain. It’s the pain of knowing he could have been there for Jack. The possibility of him being able to stop it. The possibility of them being better. It’s the pain of the possibilities they had together.  
  
He wants to yell he threw it away. He wants to yell about the plans they made, how they’re are gone.  
  
Instead, he flees. This time away from Jack. And to his dream. To his life.

  
~ ~ ~

Jack tries not to hold resentment. He tries not to cry. He tries not to ache.

 

In rehab they tell him _he_ can't flee. He can't run from his problems. In the end, he's only confronted with more problems. And that only got him to the dark place. The place that got him here.

 

He acknowledges it and mourns. And he works for him. He works for his future, for once. In a positive light. In his own light.

 

When his papa and maman greet him once he's finished, they hold him like he's never been held. And he feels like he floats on air. Alicia looks to him with soft eyes and an open heart. He melts under her gaze, it’s like he’s eight again, full of promise and hope and no care. He feels young and clean, a wiped slate ready to be.

 

He looks to his papa with a lump in his throat and falls apart under his gaze.

 

“Oh son,” he whispers, holding him in his arms.

 

And the gates open. He sees light.

 

~ ~ ~

 

He comes back.

 

It takes the excuse of a Stanley cup win and the confidence of a superstar, but he reconvenes and finally comes in contact with the boy that saw into his heart. The boy that fell apart.

 

Jack is happy now, he’s not always good but he’s him, he’s stable, he’s real. And that’s more than Parse could ever give him. More than his home town could. More than the world could when they met. And now he’s whole, not lost, not dark, not shattered.

 

And that’s when Parse comes to speak to him, to say something that isn’t a jumbled mess of texts and emails and things that come at hours when you only feel the pain of regret and when your mistakes hit you like a bullet to the chest. It’s the first time he’s here and he’s coherent and he’s seen his face.

 

They’ve grown up. They both shed the childish haircuts of fluff and peach cheeks. Now they’re chiseled, with gold in their eyes and futures that show surprises. None know. None show.

 

They see each other with heartbroken gazes. Parse had forgotten what it was like to feel this sort of pain. But it turns to resentment and anger quick. Jack's had turned to anxiety and sadness, but he used it to be better. He used it to come out swinging with a name to him. And now he’s here.  

 

And Jack just looks at him in the midst of a party thrown in the haus. Everyone around them is drunk and Jack had only come down from the shouting and chanting of Samwells finest hockey enthusiast about the epic win the fantastic, glorious Kent Parson had made. He comes down mostly because he thought he heard wrong, and because his heart had shook in his chest. He didn’t like it, but a part of him was tied to Parse. Heartstrings never tire. Heartstrings never wither or break. They pull and strain but they stay. And he felt the pull, the voice, the gasp of heart within him telling him to go downstairs.

 

So he had.

 

And no sooner was he met with the anguish in him that told him to flee. But he remembered his promise and he stayed grounded. This was his home. This was his heart.

 

Parse jogged to him in a I-Just-Won victory lap full of grins and smiles and hugs Jack.

 

It feels like a fraud to Jack, but he recoils into it. He doesn’t want to make a scene but Shitty can see the annoyance on Jack's face. Well, that’s what Shitty thinks it is-- it's more like pain, like ache. The one he long thought he had rid himself of. But instead it sits in his stomach like a sour taste he could never rid.

 

“Let’s just-- come upstairs Kenny.”

 

“Sure thing Zimms,” he smiles and follows after him. He’s giddy and echoing far more confidence than Jack thinks should be allowed. Maybe it’s the cheap beer. Maybe it’s the buzz of the win on his shoulders. Maybe it’s the two of them. In the same room. Together and not together, everything, nothing, all.

 

When they reach his room Jack sits in the chair to his desk while Parse lies back on his bed, elbows behind him keeping him up just enough to look around. Jack wants a distance between him, he wants control. They aren’t seventeen with too much pressure to be. They’re here and they’re both free-- on some level or another.

 

“So,” Kent breathes out. The air of confidence is stunted now. It’s soon hit with the mist of reality and truth he knows he needs to give. They both need to give.

 

“So, Parse” Jack echoes. “Why are you here?”

 

And for a moment they look at each other and it feels like years before, it feels like nothing has changed. But reality hits like bricks and Kent looks away to the ground, sitting up, his arm scratching his neck. Pulling off a look that illustrates he knows nothing. Jack doesn’t buy it. He never has.

 

“I wanted to see you Zimms, it’s.. It’s time yknow?”

 

Jack clears his throat and shakes his head. He wants to look away but instead he looks straight at him. “It was time awhile ago Parse, but you left. You remember that eh? I do.” It’s cold and Jack means it. He holds the bitterness like a weapon, carefully aimed.

 

Parse coughs and almost looks offended, but the facade drops and he looks straight to Jack. “I’m here now. I want to apologize. I want to make it.. I want to make it right. God, civil at least Zimms. We were. We were best friends right? We were..” he trails off, not finishing the sentence. There’s no answer for it. For what they were. Neither knows. Or perhaps they know too much, too much they won’t confront.

 

“We _were_ Parse. And now we’re not. I appreciate the apology but there’s no need. Thanks for coming around. Congratulations on your win, but I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you.” And Jack means it, though the sincerity of the congrats is coarse with pain from Parse’s return, he means it. He can’t do anything, not now. Those times have passed.

 

But not for Kent. He’s here, and he’s not one to give up.

 

“Zimms, please.. I. Talk to me. Come on, you’ve got to feel something. You aren’t this hockey robot they say, huh?” He whispers lightly. It’d be that, a joke. A touch of light on the evening, but instead Kent sits across from him ready to cry. They’re seventeen and twenty something all at once. Fractions of images between the past and present molding to one to create a scenery you’d never want on screen.

 

“ _Kent_ , I said I can’t do anything for you. It’s been too long.”

 

And then a switch is flipped in Parse. Maybe it’s within the name, maybe it’s within the realization he can’t do anything anymore. Maybe it’s the alcohol in the pit of his stomach, urging its way up. But he feels the anger back then. He feels the pain and lets it free.

  
"You erased everything in your life Jack but you can't erase me. I'm still here. I'm still breathing. I'm still fighting--" he almost says _for you,_ _Jack_. He almost says he loves him. He almost says that he never stopped.  
  
The air hangs heavy with almosts and falls apart at the connection of gazes. Everything comes in waves, and now they're overtaken with the onslaught of regret. Splashing in each face, falling past their eyes.

 

There’s no room to breathe, so Jack leaves. He goes to Shitty’s room and sits against the door. There’s nothing to say, there’s nothing to think. He’s filled to the brim with words he can’t let himself say, that are in the past and won’t fix anything. He feels pain and wounds but he knows they’ll heal. He cries against the door until he hears Kent Parson wander downstairs to the cheer of the party floor.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Kent leaves at 3am in the back of a cab on way to the hotel. Shitty carries him to the car while Jack watches from the window of his best friends room. The two walking to the car is a sight to see, both drunk and wobbling, but the only sober person in the haus is Jack. And there wasn’t a way he could, or would, help.

 

Shitty knows it. He assumes it’s jealousy, but he puts two cups of coffee in him, enough to stabilize him to see the great Kent Parson off and tend to his friend.

 

Jack falls asleep in Shitty’s bed just as the sun rises, and Shitty leaves the blanket draped over him and takes his room. Sending him a text to see in the morning reading “We swap now bro? Fucking wild night.”

 

Jack wants to smile and cry all at once, but instead he sleeps.

He can afford a day in.  
  
~ ~ ~

  
Everything comes in waves, which Jack Zimmermann road out.  
  
What he had constant now were a few things: his determination and his papa's eyes on his heart-- his maman's steady smile.  
  
And a boy down the road, with summer kissed skin and baked pies-- both will glisten.

**Author's Note:**

> All credit to characters goes to author Ngozi of course
> 
> follow me on tumblr n stuff if you wanna:
> 
> omgcp/webcomic blog: maplebits.tumblr.com (aka the only one that matters but I'll post the others)  
> writing blog: inkedfingertips.tumblr.com  
> main blog/aesthetics/shitposts: emilydlckinson.tumblr.com
> 
> reblog it on tumblr here! http://maplebits.tumblr.com/post/143015694878/waves-in-which-kenny-and-zimms-owe-each-other-a
> 
> I'm sorry about the weirdness of formatting, transferring google docs to here makes extra space in some areas but leaves it normal in others? My apologies for tht I know it can be frustrating aa


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